For context, currently nearly 4% of the world's population live in countries/states thereof where they may get legally married as a same-sex couple.

That'll gradually go down of course as the world's population continues to expand.

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This has all taken place within the last 8 years. Almost catching up with the mac users

He he... Apple's only just started but the gay marriage thingy has probably run it's course now except as the states go down one by one over there... so when they've all fallen it'll finish up at something like 6 gay marriage nations and the rest straight.

Or, in a different universe from the one in your mind, the global population of people brought up homophobic gradually gets old and dies, and the world's population of people who don't find same-sex marriage offensive/threatening grows daily, leading to more and more changes in legislation over the next few decades to reflect the changing views of the population.

We'll just have to wait and see, eh?

Personally, I also hope for the day when "marriage/relationship" doesn't automatically imply 'just 2 people' too. Since western culture has performed effective ethnic cleansing on extended families, our only hope for commitments that support happy children and marriages is in polyamory.

Over 90% of sexual abuse perpetrators are heterosexual men - and many of the remainder are heterosexual women. So every nuclear family should have a few gay friends around to help keep them on the straight and narrow.

Since gays and lesbians aren't excluded from the institution of marriage it can't be said to be discriminatory on grounds of sexual orientation.

Well, yes and no. Back in the day when race posed a similar issue it could have been said that marriage didn't discriminate based on race since blacks and whites could be married -- just not to each other. The discrimination wasn't that blacks, for example, couldn't get married but that the state was restricting who they could get married TO. The latter was found unconstitutional because it restricted the rights of two adults who knowingly wished to commit to a civil relationship with each other, and the state could not prove an overwhelming interest in denying them the right to do so ...

Similarly, while it is true, for example, that gay men can marry -- they just cant marry each other. And of course, the discrimination is exactly the same as in the race example above. At this point it seems the the state's interest in preventing those unions is being rejected little by little ... it remains to be seen how much of a sea change this will be ...

And I agree -- most if not all of the problems lies in the fact that civil marriage is in fact called "marriage," which has connotations outside of mere civil rights and is therefore bogging down what should be a fairly straightforward case of equal access under the law with all the baggage it has accumulated over the millennia ...

I say re-label all civil marriage as "unions" and you've solved 99% of the problem ...

The discrimination wasn't that blacks, for example, couldn't get married but that the state was restricting who they could get married TO.

Nice try, six. Discrimination against "blacks for example"? How about "whites for example"? Or how about "discrimination against everyone for example"? When you discriminate against everyone it's not discrimination but a stupid rule so I reject the analogy.

With inter-racial prohibitions the state was restricting who anyone could get married to - it still does and still should, to exclude minors for example and marriage between persons who are too closely related. These requirements were, and are, universally accepted as is the requirement that marriage be between members of the opposite sex and that it be consummated. Inter-racial restrictions on the other hand were universally rejected as are same sex marriages. Apartheid societies like the States started making up their own rules that almost no one else agreed with and that's what you're doing now with the same sex dogma.

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Similarly, while it is true, for example, that gay men can marry -- they just cant marry each other. And of course, the discrimination is exactly the same as in the race example above.

No, it's different. Removal of restriction on inter-racial unions required no re-definition of 'marriage' but same-sex 'marriage' does and that's why they're wrong. If you lot carry on with this nonsense all the way to national level your'e going come up against international rejection and humiliation just as you did with your apartheid rules and marriages.

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